Why do men assume their wife will become a SAHM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine expected me to stay home and handle all of the kid and house stuff.....while still making 6 figures. Not sure how that works. But when I was SAHM, he resented that I didn’t make money. When I worked, he resented that it infringed on his career.

I think males in our society are raised to be entitled, while females are raised to sacrifice for others. They’re deep seated cultural beliefs that most people don’t even realize they have.

I see it even among SAH parents - SAHMs do way more for their kids, while the SAHDs I see are focused on themselves and ignore their kids, play on their phone, etc.

This. I feel like my husband does an okay job with it, but by "okay" I mean that he has very slowly adjusted to reality over the course of many years. But I do think he had incredibly unrealistic expectations for every aspect of our lives (home ownership, having a baby, being a two-income family, etc.).

A very common conversation in our house is that I will let him know that I will need help from him in order to do something for our family (like taking a break from work to care for our infant, or later, putting our child in daycare so that I could return to work), and his initial response is that he "can't" do it. Like I would say "In order for me to stay home, we're going to have to be thoughtful about how we spend money on food" and he would complain that he simply wasn't capable of doing things like looking at prices at the grocery store, or packing a lunch. Or later when I returned to work, I said that I would need him to commit to either drop off or pick up from daycare and arrange his work schedule accordingly, and his first response was that this simply would not be possible and I would have to do both.

Then we have a fight, then he thinks about it and realizes he's being rigid and needs to give a little, then he does the thing I originally asked for.

This is how it always works. I really do think he was just socialized to not have to never have to compromise for other people, and he has learned to just say no whenever anyone asks him to do something he doesn't want to do. Whereas I think many women, like me, are raised to always put others' comfort first and to compromise without even making the other person ask for it. I've had to learn to ask, and he has very slowly learned to compromise. But it takes work.

We are teaching our own kids that they can and should always ask for help, or even just for more from other people. And we are also teaching them that part of being in a family or a relationship is listening when someone asks you for help or accommodation, and to treat others' needs as equal to our own. It's hard, but I do not want them to have to repeat all of this in a generation.

Good for you pp! We have to be the change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think two things are happening:

1) Most (not all!) couples I know, the husband makes more than the wife, so his income is the priority in maintaining the family’s lifestyle.

2) A lot of people don’t give much thought to childcare until the children are actually there. This is especially true of men.

It can become a very frustrating situation for both halves of the couple if the wife is pregnant and they have to make a childcare plan when they don’t agree. If the husband doesn’t want daycare but can’t afford to leave his job it can feel really crappy.

As with most things, this is a communication problem. (Of course, I’m assuming we’re talking normal couples where this is a difference of opinion and not as a means to control and abuse others.)

I agree this is likely a very common process. It's just I don't know disappointing? That people can't see how men making more is a result of women being pressured to stay home because the argument against women getting better pay, is well they always leave their positions. It's just so. . ugh. Maybe things will improve as more leaders arise that come from homes with working moms and who are working moms themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

Thank you! At this point, I think women should strongly encourage their daughters to remain child free and focus on their careers for their own sanity. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their interests for generations while men selfishly do whatever the hell they want.

I'm not sure this is the solution, I think we need more working moms to advocate for more working moms. I do think we shouldn't mommy track our daughters before they are moms. Is till hear way too often " are you sure that's a career you want it will be hard/easy to be a mom with that." You never hear thos comments directed at boys. I also think it would better if we started raisng our kids a little differently, more balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH doesn’t expect me to quit my highly paid job. He also doesn’t expect me to manage the kids’ calendars, dr and dentist appointments, play dates, outgrown shoes and clothes, house maintenance, etc.

He just also doesn’t expect him to. He floats through life oblivious to everyone managing things for him.

I guess I’d trade him for SAHM-demanding husband at this point.

Yessss! Same. My dh doesn’t nag me to do anything. But also doesn’t initiate things. He absolutely didn’t want me to be a sahm. He liked us being equals and making equal money.

I’ve never had a friend tell me that her dh makes the kids’ doctors appointments or shops for shoes before they outgrow them. And I know lots of excellent fathers but they never do more than 49%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its a US thing.

My SILs in my home country have careers that is pretty much wholeheartedly supported by the husbands and families because it generates income. In addition to all of that there is a huge amount of benefits like maternity and paternity leave etc given to women. Women are supported at home and can easily outsource a lot of housekeeping, and childcare is never an issue because of abundance of options.

US is a shithole backward country as far as women's rights are concerned.

+1

Though I don't think men's expectations are necessarily better in other countries. Misogyny is everywhere and many of the men I know in France have equally unrealistic expectations for their wives in terms of motherhood. But because of government subsidized maternity leave, subsidized childcare, and the payments to families with children, women have far more leverage to make their lives more livable than in the US. If you want to be a working mother in France, the entire system is set up to support that choice, so even if your husband has some fantasy of having a SAHM, you can still make your own choice even if it it's not exactly what he wanted/expected. I actually think socially there is a lot of pressure on women in France to return to work relatively quickly because there is so much support. It might be different outside of Paris, but in Paris women who don't work at all are viewed kind of negatively. If you don't have very young children, the expectation is that you will have some kind of job.

In the US, the problem is that the system screws over all women no matter what. Women who stay at home, even just for short periods of time with young children, are treated as though they have no value beyond their families. There is no government subsidy for these women or their families unless you are very poor, and then of course poor women with children are treated very badly. But then women who work are expected to figure out childcare entirely on their own. And it doesn't get much easier once children are in school, because school schedules are designed with the assumption that families have one parent at home with the kids during summer and winter break and after school.

Also workers in the US have so few rights. Workers get so few paid holidays or sick leave (and then healthcare itself is so expensive and tied to your work usually making it even harder for women to take time off for pregnancy or other childbirth-related issues). Plus if you healthcare is through your husband's job instead of through the government, that is just another way that you are reliant on your husband as a stay at home mother, which further devalues your role.

The idea that women in the US are not in open revolt in order to get some of the basic family and worker protections that are commonplace in other countries is beyond me. Do they just not know? Many European countries are having arguments right now about government benefits and subsidies, but those arguments mostly focus on pensions and unemployment benefits, especially for immigrants since there is so much xenophobia in Europe. And there are conversations on the margins of healthcare and family benefits (how much, how administered, etc.). But even the really far-right parties in Europe accept that a civilized society will provide some baseline support for workers and families. The US is a bizarre anomaly and I don't think many people here realize to what degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Umm. Mine never did. He's proud of my career. And, we don't need my salary (though it's a great one!).

I am lucky I have always had great flexibility/WAH after kids.

I know. It’s 2020. All of my female cousins, sister and mother have thriving careers: STEM, law, medicine, finance, etc.

What world do you people live in? Education and careers are big in my family.

I’m 50 and live in a neighborhood of $1.5-3 million homes and almost all of the women have prestigious careers. They don’t need the $, husbands make enough.

I love my job. I’m proud to earn my own retirement.

And nobody can ever walk all over you because you have the means to leave any situation. It’s power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its a US thing.

My SILs in my home country have careers that is pretty much wholeheartedly supported by the husbands and families because it generates income. In addition to all of that there is a huge amount of benefits like maternity and paternity leave etc given to women. Women are supported at home and can easily outsource a lot of housekeeping, and childcare is never an issue because of abundance of options.

US is a shithole backward country as far as women's rights are concerned.

+1

Though I don't think men's expectations are necessarily better in other countries. Misogyny is everywhere and many of the men I know in France have equally unrealistic expectations for their wives in terms of motherhood. But because of government subsidized maternity leave, subsidized childcare, and the payments to families with children, women have far more leverage to make their lives more livable than in the US. If you want to be a working mother in France, the entire system is set up to support that choice, so even if your husband has some fantasy of having a SAHM, you can still make your own choice even if it it's not exactly what he wanted/expected. I actually think socially there is a lot of pressure on women in France to return to work relatively quickly because there is so much support. It might be different outside of Paris, but in Paris women who don't work at all are viewed kind of negatively. If you don't have very young children, the expectation is that you will have some kind of job.

In the US, the problem is that the system screws over all women no matter what. Women who stay at home, even just for short periods of time with young children, are treated as though they have no value beyond their families. There is no government subsidy for these women or their families unless you are very poor, and then of course poor women with children are treated very badly. But then women who work are expected to figure out childcare entirely on their own. And it doesn't get much easier once children are in school, because school schedules are designed with the assumption that families have one parent at home with the kids during summer and winter break and after school.

Also workers in the US have so few rights. Workers get so few paid holidays or sick leave (and then healthcare itself is so expensive and tied to your work usually making it even harder for women to take time off for pregnancy or other childbirth-related issues). Plus if you healthcare is through your husband's job instead of through the government, that is just another way that you are reliant on your husband as a stay at home mother, which further devalues your role.

The idea that women in the US are not in open revolt in order to get some of the basic family and worker protections that are commonplace in other countries is beyond me. Do they just not know? Many European countries are having arguments right now about government benefits and subsidies, but those arguments mostly focus on pensions and unemployment benefits, especially for immigrants since there is so much xenophobia in Europe. And there are conversations on the margins of healthcare and family benefits (how much, how administered, etc.). But even the really far-right parties in Europe accept that a civilized society will provide some baseline support for workers and families. The US is a bizarre anomaly and I don't think many people here realize to what degree.

I wish I could hug you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm. Mine never did. He's proud of my career. And, we don't need my salary (though it's a great one!).

I am lucky I have always had great flexibility/WAH after kids.

I know. It’s 2020. All of my female cousins, sister and mother have thriving careers: STEM, law, medicine, finance, etc.

What world do you people live in? Education and careers are big in my family.

I’m 50 and live in a neighborhood of $1.5-3 million homes and almost all of the women have prestigious careers. They don’t need the $, husbands make enough.

I love my job. I’m proud to earn my own retirement.

And nobody can ever walk all over you because you have the means to leave any situation. It’s power.

That's great for you, but you and your million dollar home and your degree aren't really the subject matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

Thank you! At this point, I think women should strongly encourage their daughters to remain child free and focus on their careers for their own sanity. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their interests for generations while men selfishly do whatever the hell they want.

I'm not sure this is the solution, I think we need more working moms to advocate for more working moms. I do think we shouldn't mommy track our daughters before they are moms. Is till hear way too often " are you sure that's a career you want it will be hard/easy to be a mom with that." You never hear thos comments directed at boys. I also think it would better if we started raisng our kids a little differently, more balance.

We should neither discourage women from having children nor telling women that they must work. This is not a problem of women making the wrong choices. This is a problem with society at large not supporting women and not supporting families and expecting women to independently provide childcare while also expecting families to have enough money to afford spiraling housing and healthcare costs.

We need universal, subsidized healthcare, parental leave, and childcare. We should also probably be offering a stipend to families on a per child basis to help ease the burden on parents and to address equity issues for children. Why is this even a question? We've been telling women for years: "If you just make perfect choices then everything will be fine." That's not liberation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm. Mine never did. He's proud of my career. And, we don't need my salary (though it's a great one!).

I am lucky I have always had great flexibility/WAH after kids.

I know. It’s 2020. All of my female cousins, sister and mother have thriving careers: STEM, law, medicine, finance, etc.

What world do you people live in? Education and careers are big in my family.

I’m 50 and live in a neighborhood of $1.5-3 million homes and almost all of the women have prestigious careers. They don’t need the $, husbands make enough.

I love my job. I’m proud to earn my own retirement.

And nobody can ever walk all over you because you have the means to leave any situation. It’s power.

Privilege begets privilege. If you live in a neighborhood of million dollars homes, you have no idea what it’s like for 99% of people in this country. Are you really this blind? Some gaping holes in that education and also where your compassion and awareness outside yourself should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its a US thing.

My SILs in my home country have careers that is pretty much wholeheartedly supported by the husbands and families because it generates income. In addition to all of that there is a huge amount of benefits like maternity and paternity leave etc given to women. Women are supported at home and can easily outsource a lot of housekeeping, and childcare is never an issue because of abundance of options.

US is a shithole backward country as far as women's rights are concerned.

+1

Though I don't think men's expectations are necessarily better in other countries. Misogyny is everywhere and many of the men I know in France have equally unrealistic expectations for their wives in terms of motherhood. But because of government subsidized maternity leave, subsidized childcare, and the payments to families with children, women have far more leverage to make their lives more livable than in the US. If you want to be a working mother in France, the entire system is set up to support that choice, so even if your husband has some fantasy of having a SAHM, you can still make your own choice even if it it's not exactly what he wanted/expected. I actually think socially there is a lot of pressure on women in France to return to work relatively quickly because there is so much support. It might be different outside of Paris, but in Paris women who don't work at all are viewed kind of negatively. If you don't have very young children, the expectation is that you will have some kind of job.

In the US, the problem is that the system screws over all women no matter what. Women who stay at home, even just for short periods of time with young children, are treated as though they have no value beyond their families. There is no government subsidy for these women or their families unless you are very poor, and then of course poor women with children are treated very badly. But then women who work are expected to figure out childcare entirely on their own. And it doesn't get much easier once children are in school, because school schedules are designed with the assumption that families have one parent at home with the kids during summer and winter break and after school.

Also workers in the US have so few rights. Workers get so few paid holidays or sick leave (and then healthcare itself is so expensive and tied to your work usually making it even harder for women to take time off for pregnancy or other childbirth-related issues). Plus if you healthcare is through your husband's job instead of through the government, that is just another way that you are reliant on your husband as a stay at home mother, which further devalues your role.

The idea that women in the US are not in open revolt in order to get some of the basic family and worker protections that are commonplace in other countries is beyond me. Do they just not know? Many European countries are having arguments right now about government benefits and subsidies, but those arguments mostly focus on pensions and unemployment benefits, especially for immigrants since there is so much xenophobia in Europe. And there are conversations on the margins of healthcare and family benefits (how much, how administered, etc.). But even the really far-right parties in Europe accept that a civilized society will provide some baseline support for workers and families. The US is a bizarre anomaly and I don't think many people here realize to what degree.

I wish I could hug you.

Me,too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Typically this sort of thing is discussed *before children cone into the family. Ideally, both people agree on how they want their children cared for and then proceed from there.

If that is your approach, build flexibility into it; you need to be aware that many people make those plans without fully appreciating what it means to become a parent. For a lot of folks, in spite of their best laid plans, the moment that child is in the house, everything changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with awoman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I now one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of ecpexting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

My DH thought i would SAH because he made 3x what I make (and I have a good paying career myself) and doesn’t trust paid caregivers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

I’ve been going through a lot lately at home, juggling work and the kids, and now DL. This just made me choke up bc I feel so alone.
DH’s job is demanding so I don’t expect 50/50, but I expected more than 90/10. And yes, we’ve discussed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm. Mine never did. He's proud of my career. And, we don't need my salary (though it's a great one!).

I am lucky I have always had great flexibility/WAH after kids.

I know. It’s 2020. All of my female cousins, sister and mother have thriving careers: STEM, law, medicine, finance, etc.

What world do you people live in? Education and careers are big in my family.

I’m 50 and live in a neighborhood of $1.5-3 million homes and almost all of the women have prestigious careers. They don’t need the $, husbands make enough.

I love my job. I’m proud to earn my own retirement.

And nobody can ever walk all over you because you have the means to leave any situation. It’s power.

I know plenty of women in working in law or medicine that ended up stepping back or becoming SAHM because of the pressures of working and parenthood.